Phillips Wharf Environmental Center (PWEC) took another step toward transforming the oyster house property beside the Tilghman Bridge into their new campus. More money needs to be raised before October, but PWEC believes donors will step forward to enable it to purchase the two-acre site, so it is forging ahead.
PWEC is best known for its focus on Bay animals, with touch-tanks and aquariums and its traveling “Fishmobile.” PWEC Executive Director Kelley Cox says most people are aware that the Bay is in trouble and many want to help. “One thing we can control is what runs off our properties,” says Cox, “and all of that does wind up in the Bay eventually, whether you live on waterfront property in Talbot County or in Lancaster, Pa. The Chesapeake watershed is 65,000 square miles. Reducing the polluted run-off would benefit everything that lives in and around the Bay.”
Property owners have several practical and relatively inexpensive options for controlling run-off. “A rain garden is one method,” said Matt Felperin, Chesapeake Conservation Corps intern, who chose the rain garden as his “capstone project,” required for completion of his 12-month involvement with PWEC. The rain garden serves as a functional run-off buffer for the Oyster House site and as an educational tool. By having a rain garden on their future campus, PWEC can show visitors how attractive such gardens can be, how they can solve drainage problems, and how they are constructed. “I wanted something kids would enjoy, too. And rain gardens even attract wildlife,” said Felperin with a smile as he watched waterfowl paddling in the low-side pond. “It’s a win-win.”
Felperin and PWEC Board member George Yurek succeeded in obtaining a grant of over $3,000 from the Chesapeake Bay Trust to construct the rain garden. Then, with help from many volunteers, they went to work.
The garden posed a challenge as soon as landscaper Aaron Cummings began excavation. The location is so close to Knapp’s Narrows that water seeps in with each high tide, and that forced a re-design. “The pond was unplanned, so we had to go back to our plant supplier, Environmental Concern of St. Michaels, to exchange some of our plants for more salt water-tolerant species—green bulrush, tussock sedge, blue flag iris, and others,” said Felperin. “In essence, we have created a wetland. This actually presents a very interesting and unique design, one of the first of its kind, I believe.”
The crowning touch was a walkway of mosaic tiles contributed by St. Michaels Middle-High School art teacher Bridget Whited and her students. The walkway runs the length of the rain garden between the wet and the dry zones.
Everyone is invited to come to Tilghman and take a look. Contributions to support the work may be mailed to PWEC, PO Box C, Tilghman MD 21671 or donated by PayPal at their website www.pwec.org.
By Gary Crawford
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